Backed by Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott, Medina Valley Independent School District officials are appealing a federal judge's ruling that barred public prayer at Saturday's graduation ceremony, they said at a news conference in San Antonio on Wednesday.

Abbott said his office today will file with the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans an “amicus brief” that will accompany an appeal from the district, to try to overturn a ruling of Chief U.S. District Judge Fred Biery.

After a hearing Tuesday, Biery issued an order that barred public prayer at the graduation, but left the door open for individual expression of religious belief. The order came in a lawsuit filed by an agnostic couple whose son Corwyn Schultz is among this year's 238 graduates of the school in Castroville.

Christa and Danny Schultz sued the district last week, saying students are wrongly subjected to school-sponsored prayer in violation of the Constitution.

Abbott cited the lawsuit as an attempt by “atheists and agnostics to use courts to eliminate from the public landscape any and all reference to God whatsoever.”

He held himself up as a defender against such a movement, noting that, among other things, he represented the state in its successful legal fight to keep a monument of the Ten Commandments at the State Capitol.

Abbott said he believed Biery's ruling “is contrary to the Constitution (and) contrary to law.” He cited a number of cases he said supports the district and allows the students “to have this invocation and benediction.”

“What the ruling demands and commands is that these school officials be both thought and speech police, where they go out and make physical changes to comments that are being made or remove a student who may be saying something,” Abbott said.

The Schultzes' lawyers were perplexed with the appeal, since the district seemed amenable to some of the changes discussed at Tuesday's hearing — particularly having the terms “invocation” and “benediction” removed because they might invite prayer.

Biery's written order, filed Wednesday, said the Schultzes “are likely to succeed on the merits of their claim” that prayers at the high school commencement ceremonies violate the Constitution.

He ordered the district to remove the terms “invocation” and “benediction” from its graduation program, which is yet to be printed, and replace it with the terms “opening remarks” and “closing remarks.”

He also directed the district to instruct student speakers “not to present a prayer, to wit, ... they may not end their remarks with ‘amen' or ‘in a (deity's name) we pray,' and they shall not otherwise deliver a message that would commonly be understood to be a prayer, nor use the word ‘prayer' ... to encourage others who may not believe in prayer, to join and believe the same concept,” the order said.

“The students may (be allowed) in stating their own personal beliefs, through conduct such as kneeling to face Mecca, the wearing of yarmulke or hijab or making the sign of the cross.”